


1001 Exiles

by zaan



Series: Unfamiliar Affections [6]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Garak missing Julian, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-30 22:35:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19412794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zaan/pseuds/zaan
Summary: Garak tells Julian the story of his exile





	1001 Exiles

Kira , Garak, and Damar sat in the cellar nursing the last dregs of a dusty kanar, thinking of the day ahead when they were to meet their new contact. She had promised supporters who were willing to lay out money, supplies, and soldiers for the rebellion. It was the first time since their disastrous run-in with Gul Revok that they had placed their trust in anyone, their decision driven by necessity rather than choice.

Their uneasiness with the decision showed in their behaviour. Normally in the evenings they talked, planned, even joked. After months together they had come to rely on each other more than any of them cared to admit. This evening, though, they were restless and withdrawn. Garak sat fiddling with an old communication device. Damar paced. Kira painfully examined and re-examined the plans. When she reached for them for the fifth or sixth time, Damar snapped at her.

"There's nothing more to look at. Your poring over them again isn't helping."

Kira bristled. "You think your pacing is helping? All it's doing is setting my teeth on edge."

Garak got up abruptly and grabbed the nearly empty kanar bottle, upsetting the dark blue sediment that swirled around in sudden agitation. "Stop it," he said, and something in his voice unsettled them enough to abandon the argument half-formed.

Garak poured out the last of the kanar evenly into their glasses and stared at them until they settled uncomfortably on the cots. 

Garak sat back in his corner. He twirled his glass, watching the bits of sediment swirl and settle, wishing his thoughts would do the same. All day he had been thinking of Julian, missing Julian, longing for Julian as deeply and futilely as he had longed for Cardassia in his exile. He could face the possibility of his death with equanimity – but to never see Julian again? He understood suddenly the tormented cries of Heathcliff as Cathy lay dying. 

He drank the rest of the kanar off quickly, knowing it wouldn't help. He wanted to throw the glass into the wall, smash it, but he couldn't overcome the conviction that if he did Tain would appear on the stairs, his displeasure writ clearly in his darkening eyes. 

He looked covertly at Damar and Kira, who sat huddled on the lumpy cots. Kira would be thinking of Odo, Damar of the family he had lost. If Julian were here, he would try to help, to make things better, if even for a moment. He could do that. He wanted Julian to be proud of him. He set the glass down on their makeshift table, an old kanar crate long since emptied of other value, and looked up at his companions with as much lightness as he could manage.

"Have I ever told you why I was exiled?" he asked, his voice sly and teasing.

The words were like slim shadows of sunshine that sometimes slip through dark clouds. Damar smiled and Kira managed a tight laugh, and Garak found his own mood lightened by the relief on their faces.

It was a by-now familiar refrain among their little group. When Damar had first learned that Tain was Garak's father, he couldn't stop staring at Garak. That first night, when they were putting together their makeshift beds, he had finally blurted out the question he had been carrying around all day. "If Tain was your father, why did he exile you?"

Kira had tensed, looking at Garak. He had only smiled and shook his head sadly at Damar's misunderstanding. "You don't really think I was exiled, do you? That was just a cover for the Federation – they eat that kind of thing up, you know. No, the real reason I was there was because of a dead man's map."

Damar had stared at Garak incredulously. Kira had snorted and settled in for the ride.

"You see, one day Tain had brought a man in for questioning, a thief. The man, interested in preserving his life, told Tain he knew of a map. Apparently, the 13th battalion that had been involved in the raid against the Kinara had secretly acquired a large amount of treasure. Now, they should have handed over this treasure to the government, but they were greedy and decided to keep it for themselves. They had planned on bringing it back to Cardassia, only they were suspected. Gul Tirin himself was coming to arrest them. In a panic, they stopped at Terok Nor and hid the treasure, very carefully and very skillfully."

"And made the map," said Kira. "I thought Cardassians had eidetic memories?"

"Very observant of you, Major. You're quite right. Only these men were all from a regiment in the Northern continent. These regiments are always made up of relatives and this group, unfortunately, had a genetic mutation that impacted their memories."

"How convenient," said Kira.

"Not for them, I assure you," said Garak. "Because when Gul Tirin came aboard their ship they hid the map in the kitchen – Guls don't go traipsing around the servant areas, you understand – and the cook, busy with the special meal for the Gul, spilled yamok sauce on part of it."

"Oh no."

"Oh no indeed. And so the treasure was never found. The map was passed down from descendant to descendant. They had been looking for the treasure ever since, with no luck. The thief, assuming correctly that his life was worth more than a useless map, bargained with it for his life. Tain acquired the map, and I acquired the assignment."

"And were you successful?"

"Of course, although it did take awhile. It was very cleverly hidden and my time to search was limited in between hemming trousers and helping out the Federation. I was just preparing to go home – a very rich man, mind you – when ..." Garak spread his hand to indicate the war with the Dominion.

Kira had clapped. Damar was sheepish in his embarrassment. "All right, all right," he had said. "I'm sorry I asked." He figured he'd got what was coming to him and let the subject drop.

That might have been the end of it, except the next night, just as they had settled down to dinner, Kira had said, managing a perfectly straight face. "So Garak, why did Tain really exile you?" 

Damar had choked momentarily on his stew. Kira had thumped him on the back, and Garak had taken off on another tale, about a secret operation to penetrate the heart of Section 31.

Thereafter it had become a nightly ritual. It had passed the hours, and helped them grow closer, but for Garak it also unexpectedly brought him closer to Julian. When he told the stories, he told them to Kira and Damar, but in his heart he was telling them to Julian, as he used to do as they lay in bed after making love, Julian mesmerised and asking question after question, poking for holes that Garak skillfully patched. Now the warm promise of another story served, more than the muddied kanar, to soothe their nerves. 

"It was because of forbidden love, wasn't it?" said Damar. "I refuse to believe otherwise."

"Such a romantic!" scoffed Kira. "I prefer to believe he was secretly a member of the Bajoran resistance."

"Both ridiculous and unworthy guesses," Garak replied. "I'm afraid the truth is much more mundane. You see, I told you Tain couldn't acknowledge me as his son because it wouldn't have been safe. That wasn't exactly true."

"What?!?" Kira exclaimed, a hand to her forehead. "A lie!!!"

Garak grinned, ready to explain how he was actually the son of a prominent Gul, except that when he opened his mouth, he couldn't. All he could picture was Julian, waiting eagerly for him to begin, eyes full of amusement and love and trust. Loving Garak's stories but knowing that one day he would share with him the truth. Only he never had, had he? Not about this. And now there was no more time, only one last story to share. He closed his eyes briefly in preparation and began.

"It wasn't because it was dangerous. Tain didn't acknowledge me ... because I was a bastard." He used the coarsest term he knew for the word, sparing himself nothing. Damar flinched. Kira stared. "That's all I was. The bastard son of a member of the service class." Here Garak's eyes flickered to the ceiling; they could hear Mila thumping around upstairs. Damar was having trouble looking at Garak, but Kira did not flinch. Garak, however, saw only Julian.

"By custom he should have killed me - he certainly lamented his failure to do so often enough. But, like most men, especially powerful men, he wanted an heir. Unlike most men, he could not afford the vulnerability of a legitimate family. So there I was: the repository of all his hopes housed in an object worthy of nothing but contempt."

Garak took a shaky breath. Kira handed him what was left of her kanar, and he took it in both hands, cradling it. "Tain brought me up to be nothing but a tool for the Order. It was everything I knew. I belonged to it. Not only was I Tain's protege, Tain's heir, but I was a bastard. You see, the Order is full of orphans and bastards. Most were given menial or thankless jobs, having little education and holding only the lowliest rank, but they were loyal, and they were thankful. How could they not be? Who else would give them an opportunity to serve the state when all other opportunities were denied them? So I belonged, but I was an anomaly. No one knew of my shame. I had received a lavish education, was Tain's right hand - and yet ..."

Garak sipped at the kanar, the memories pushing the words forward. "And yet when Tain looked at me he only saw the servant boy I had been in my youth. He wanted everything from me but could not bring himself to give me anything but contempt. And I gave him everything. I excelled. I had his intelligence and cunning. I was stronger and swifter than my peers. I was as dedicated and devoted as he could have wished. I had only one weakness: sentiment. I could easily kill a man who was a threat to the state, but not his family. Tain always claimed it came from my primitive origins - certainly it did not come from him. He tried to cure me of it, without success. But it wasn't my weakness that led to my exile. No, Tain may have regretted and lamented my weakness but he did not blame me for it."

Garak paused long enough that Kira and Damar weren't sure if he would continue. They sat frozen, unwilling to disturb him. After a few moments, he began again, in a quieter voice they had to strain to hear.

"The problem in the end was Cardassia, and my devotion to her. Cardassians are taught that all actions must serve the state. I tried to live to that ideal. I still do. Then one day Tain came to me and said he needed me to eliminate a certain Gul, I thought nothing of it. As usual when given an assignment, I began by studying the target, finding out everything I could about them. Usually it was clear to me how that person threatened Cardassia. Often they were aliens, trying to gain an advantage. Sometimes they were members of the government who were defrauding the people but were too powerful to be held accountable. But as I looked at this man's life, all I could see was a man dedicated to the service of Cardassia. A man who had been openly critical of Tain."

"No matter what I had thought about Tain, I had always believed that he worked only for the good of Cardassia. I understood later that like so many of those in power he had come to conflate the state with himself. I knew it was no good to argue with him, and so I did the only thing I could. I deliberately botched the attempt in such a way that it not only failed but alerted the Gul to the danger. Tain was furious. He saw it as a personal betrayal. The next day I was on a shuttle to Terok Nor."

The silence stretched out, minute after minute, until Damar ventured to break it. "Who was the Gul?" he Damar.

Garak looked up, startled out of his thoughts. He flicked a glance at Kira. "Tekeny Ghemor," he said.

Kira's lips parted momentarily in her surprise. Solemnly, she regarded Garak and raised her empty glass. "To Cardassia and her loyal servants."

Damara followed suit. "To Cardassia and her forgotten servants."

Garak raised his glass. "To Cardassia," he said, and added silently, _'And to you, Julian, my love. Forgive me.'_

**Author's Note:**

> Depending on how you look at it, Garak's sin is against Tain (for which he was exiled) or against Julian (for not sharing this with him while he had time). Spoiler alert: yes, they all live and yes Garak does get a chance to apologise and tell Julian the story. Kira keeps what Garak shared secret.


End file.
